Thanks guys! Sodak, you are correct on seeing pheasants. In northern Indiana, if I walk into a 30 acre field that is in set aside (weeds), and flush 4 or 5 roosters it takes my breath away. I also agree with everyone that a 3" shell shouldn't be needed for pheasants, but the 2 3/4" factory shells that I have tried just didn't pattern very well out of my gun. I tried #4 shot in Remington Express, Federal game-shok and wing-shok, and #5 shot in the Winchester Extreme pheasant load, and I didn't care for the way any of them patterned. I tried an I.C., Full, and X-Full choke, as well as the .690 Mossberg Factory turkey choke, and a .680 Mad Max turkey choke. The would all pattern okay (but not good or great) at 25 yards, but by 35 yards they were getting pretty iffy. 3" 1 7/8oz #4 Remginton Nitro loads patterned very well for me though, so that's why I've been looking more into the 3" stuff. Plus, when I have some experience under my belt, I'm sure that I would expand into turkey and coyote loads. I know they can be shot with 2 3/4" shells, but I'd rather use 3" or even 3.5" for that.
For pheasants I did find that the Estate Heavy Game load patterned pretty good for me in #6 shot. So I carried two of the 3" shells in the tube, and a 2 3/4" #6 in the chamber for last weeks hunts. I learned that #6 sucks for a pheasant load. Solid hits past 20 yards failed to put the bird down solid time after time. Every time the bird landed and was able to run. The dog would have to find it, and possibly track it and hold it while I cought up to them and rung its neck. I got my limit of 2 birds each day, but I was not happy with the shells. The last day and a half I just used the 3" shells and made sure to wait another second or so on the trigger. I had no problems and even at 25 yards it didn't destroy any breast meat. Bird was dead in the air /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
From what I have learned in the past few days, I'm going to start out with the 2 3/4" shells and maybe try for payloads around 1.5 oz and see what I get.
Hidalgo - can you make any recomendations on which shot cups and gas seals to use for 3" turkey and varmit loads? The selection for 3" stuff is a lot more scarce, but I didn't know if you had tried out multiple configurations and found one that worked best for you.
Thanks again guys! And thanks especially for recomending that I get a manual and do my homework. I already knew that, but it still needs to be said any time someone is getting into a "new" area of reloading.
Mark
